The House in the Cerulean Sea Character Mapping Printables are a FREE resource that I created to go along with the book. These fun printables will help you catalogue the characters, young and old alike!

The House in the Cerulean Sea

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune is a fantasy novel aimed at adults – the main character is an adult who has been muddling his way through life, but then his job sends him to meet the most the magical children he has ever seen, while he navigates a growing attraction to another man (Arthur, the head of the orphanage).

The book is so wonderful and laugh out loud funny and could easily be loved by teens (and is loved by teens)! Klune’s work in The House in the Cerulean Sea has been praised for its warmth and messages of love and acceptance.

I was hooked fairly quickly. The best way I can describe this book is a mash up of Miss. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Hotel Transylvania. It is sweet and endearing, laugh out loud funny, and encourages you to open your mind and examine the prejudices that surround us.

I especially LOVE the cover! It is so whimsical and the colors make me feel as though I am surrounded by the ocean. Learn more about the making of the cover from Red Nose Studio here.

Brief Summary

Forty-year-old Linus Baker, career bureaucrat in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, is a gray, shriveled, downtrodden soul when his latest assignment from Extremely Upper Management sends him to The House in the Cerulean Sea, aka Marsyas Island Orphanage. Marsyas Island Orphanage is located on Marsyas Island off the coast of a little seaside resort town.

His task is to look into the well-being of the orphanage’s six young residents. (See Character List Below) In practice, it’s more like assessing how dangerous they are, and taking a hard look at the methods of Arthur Parnassus, the headmaster.

Linus faints dead away on reading the first file, belonging to Lucy (short for Lucifer), the 6-year-old reputed to be the child of Satan. Linus soon learns there’s quite a bit he hasn’t been told. As time passes and he investigates further, he starts, for the first time, to question some of the things Extremely Upper Management has been telling him about these kids.

He also falls in love (an ever growing attraction between him and Arthur Parnassus spans the length of the book) and discovers unsuspected depths of courage, loyalty, and tenacity in himself.

Character List

The Orphans

1. Talia – a two-hundred-something year old female garden gnome (which is apparently unheard of)
2. Theodore – a wyvern who speaks in chirps, has a secret hoard of treasure (and buttons) under the couch
3. Phee – a young forest sprite, distant, standoffish, has the power to make plants grow
4. Sal – an extremely shy teenage boy who shifts into a Pomeranian when frightened
5. Chauncey – no one knows WHAT Chauncey is, but he is a green amorphous blob with eyes on stalks on top of his head and he longs to be a bellhop when he grows up
6. Lucy – a charming and intelligent six-year-old whose nickname is short for Lucifer, the antichrist, likes to make threats for fun

“Are you Mr. Baker? If you are, we’ve been expecting you. If not, you’re trespassing, and you should leave before I bury you here in my garden. No one would ever know because the roots would eat your entrails and bones.” She frowned again. “I think. I’ve never buried anyone before. It would be a learning experience for the both of us.”

Talia the garden gnome

Other Characters

• Extremely Upper Management
• Linus Baker – a caseworker for the Department of Magical Youth (DICOMY)
• Arthur Parnassus – runs the orphanage
• Ms. Zoe Chapelwhite – a sprite the owns the island

Together the inhabitants of Marsyas Island are a quirky, unorthodox, makeshift family who care for one another and keep mostly to themselves. The biggest obstacle to their existence, other than government officials sent by DICOMY to check up on them, is the seaside townsfolk who are sometimes weary and other times hostile toward magical beings in general.

The House in the Cerulean Sea Character Mapping

Sometimes I get inspired with books to create something for myself as a memory tool. As I was reading The House in the Cerulean Sea I felt it would be helpful for me to list the characters and their special powers. So I created these fun The House in the Cerulean Sea Character Mapping pages to use just with this book.

Free Character Mapping Printables

–>> Download Printables HERE <<–

Study Guide

The Super Summary Study Guide is a 59-page guide for The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune and includes:

• detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering all 19 chapters commentary on major characters
• 25 important quotes
• essay topics
• several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis
• key themes like Nature Versus Nurture and The Perpetuation of Prejudice

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